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The Baba’s traveled to Horsham PA, north of Philadelphia to take on the Eastern PA Rugby Union Division 2 Blackthorn Rugby Club.

Blackthorn has a PSU connection, as one of the founding members of PSU is also a founding member of Blackthorn, Marshall Sturm. Several former PSU players have worn the green of Blackthorn. Unfortunately this family connection seemed to be missing on Saturday.

HV traveled strong with 20 players making the trip. The day was sunny but a brisk wind kept things on the cold side. The pitch was in decent shape, as we played on some field at a Quaker Day Camp. The Friends influence was not present at game time. The game started off with good possession by the Baba’s and eventually, Schweppe punched in a try off a ruck and put the Baba’s up 5-0. The game was a lot of stops and starts, with the wind playing a huge role. The other part was frequent penalties, mostly on the guys in green. Hands in the ruck, offsides, coming in from the side was a frequent call. Unfortunately, the advantage of having penalties and kicking for touch did not help, as lineouts were difficult and after a good start, the Blackthorn boys got into some rhythm and disturbed our lineouts.

Blackthorn responded with a strong drive off a good run by their fullback and after desperate defense by the Baba’s, they scored to tie the game and then converted. 5-7.

Back and forth went the game, with the Baba ‘s rucking well, but the frequent penalties and hands in ruck by Blackthorn prevented us from getting the ball out wide. Finally the Blackthorn winger broke through several tackles and put the ball down for another try and a conversion, now 5-14.

Second half started and things went to hell quickly. We got stuck down in our own 22 and had trouble kicking it out of for touch and gave up a penalty under the posts, and we are now down 5-17. Frequent chippy play by both teams resulted in numerous penalties, of which the Baba’s quickly scored off, as Schweppe and Tony worked down the field and Tony put the ball down for the 2nd try by the Baba’s and Patrick converted, score now 12-17.

Then the yellows started coming. Frankly, Blackthorn played a game in the trenches and were lucky to get away with as much as they did, but the referee tried, giving 2 yellows to Blackthorn and then red carding their captain. We did our best to match their stupid play, as “Irish Brett Hoffman” and “Mr. Social Studies Teacher Brett Hoffman” (names concealed) were given the sin bin.

Then “Manicurist Pedicurist Brett Hoffman” stepped in front of the Blackthorn fullback on a kick ahead for the try zone and the referee awarded the penalty try and sin binned “Manicurist Pedicurist Brett Hoffman”. Kind of BS call when the guy kicks it from the 50 m line and it goes out the back of the try zone, but alas, that was how the afternoon went. Now we are down 12-22 and the game ended a bit early after the awarding of 6 yellow and one red card.

So we lost 12-22 in an ugly game.

Man of the match was Judd Millar and I had to eventually leave before being in DUI territory. Team was Andy, Hank, Discount, Jud, Jack, Patrick, Ricketts, Schweppe, Ethan, Neil, Tony, Jeremy, Crapplegate, Rebar and Deerhunter. Subs were Austin, Brandon, Brett, Steve, Del new guy (?).

Tidbits- our sympathy goes out to Rob Swales on the passing of his Mom. John Flude has entered Adult Scrum Dyslexia territory by putting down 3 tries scored when we only had 2. Neil provided another entertaining “Troy” story at the social. Steve Trialanis played well in the last part of the game, almost starting a fight between Austin, Ethan and Flude.

No game this weekend. Thursday night PSU is playing St Bonanveture and this Sat at 1 pm on West, there is a State College Alumni Match in which everyone can join in and play